What the Art Knows

21.09.22

I wake up, and I follow the art.

Well, that would be a bit of an oversimplification. I don’t exactly follow my brush everywhere wandering around like Philip and the Purple Crayon. Though I would love that.

I seem to like being economical with words these days, so I’ll do my best to cut to the chase: I have never experienced creative freedom like I have in Taiwan, and it’s possible I may never experience it in the same way again. In that statement is a tacit admission that these times may not last, whether by the geopolitical forces which Taiwan is bound to, or the course of my own life, or both. This isn’t an attempt to cling to what I have, or to romanticize, but just state what I see there. Life will most likely move on in one way or another. And that scares me. It scares me in so many ways. Accepting this truth is difficult, and I’m working on it.

But yes, I experience creative freedom, economic freedom, every kind of “freedom” you want to throw out there. At night, I can travel the streets with my brush or crayon and paint the walls. During the day, I can linger at the café, just like I am now, and write. I can eat when I’m ready, and I can eat what I like. I am healthy, and happy.

So the riddle I’ve been working with is, “Why would I (or anyone in their right mind) give all of this up?” Their may be some Kierkegaardian answer in giving oneself to “god”, the unknown, whatever one wants to call it, an answer that defeats the rational.

[despite knowing full well that I never want kids, I intentionally matched with someone on an online dating site that had one. Defeats the rational?]

Covid antivaxxers are anti-rational.

And yet, there it is. 縁がある (en ga aru), Japanese for “there is a thread.” And when there is a thread, you feel it, allow it to lead you, surrender. There are times in life that call for this. Recognizing these times is a skill that can be developed.

I forgot where I was going with this, but there is an “en”. I’ll follow it to whatever ends it may lead and see what happens.

design as praxis as art

21.09.01

I don’t really have a name for what I’m doing right now. My projects grow organically, and I have no particular goal for my work or design. It feels best to let it grow and evolve on it’s own. Occasionally, “fruits” may ripen, these may become spin-offs or other side projects. I do know that for me, the joy lies in the soul of creating something as a daily practice, whether it’s a piece of writing, a sketch, a dance, or something else. It elides all attempts at definition, and so my role is not to define it, but guide it along its own path, and catalogue it as it grows. Where this project will be in a year’s time, I have no idea.

writing, integrated

21.08.10

Whatever that means, lol. But I do know this: If I want to watch a wrasslin’ clip, I can do it. If I want to write, I can do it. And I wouldn’t call it “freedom,” it’s more of like having done inner work, and continuing to do inner work, I can be more of the person I need to be. Maybe one reason is because I recognize the difficulties ahead. And knowing is half the battle. GI Joe.

Hope that just about sums it up.

T: therapist

M: me

M: I mean, it feels “weird” to call it therapy, y’know? Since we’re “integrated” now,

T: Yeah lol no, I don’t know what the fuck that means. We ain’t integrated.

M: spits out coffee So what do we talk about now that we’re uh not integrated?

T: Just keep writing, I guess. You know, just keep writing and see what happens.

M: Is it just me, or does it feel like there’s a new story in the works?

T: It isn’t you, isn’t me Search for things that you can’t see Going blind out of reach Somewhere in the vasoline

M: Sometimes I feel like some kind of secret dualist, like I’m always on this quest to integrate “halves” of myself, when I know it’s not a “halves” thing at all, it’s a rhizomatic ecosystem of things. And I’m just working from within this rhizome or something.

I mean at it’s base it’s close to existentialism, just a sense of riding the waves [checks weather conditions for surfing this weekend]. Yeah, I’ll probably go surfing soon. Got enough money to go for it, why not, y’know. Not like it’s not hot enough.

I mean that’s the thing, right? You put things on this axis, meaning putting the creative life first (I’m just not going to call it existential, but whatever), you know, letting the “art” lead you, and those old questions “Japan Taiwan, or US” just sorta go out the window. The answer is: “wherever you can live your creative best life.” And I think that’s what keeps us coming back to this place, because even with the bullshit we have to put up with, we still get to live a creative life. It’s miles better than whatever bidenesque trumptastic dredge we’ll find ourselves in in the US, or even the patriarchal rigidity of Japan. So it forces us to adapt to the surroundings, the pollution, the screaming babies or whatever. On the surface, this may seem like a call to go back into relationship land, and that’s tempting. But the key to choosing to put the creativity first is that it also means you need the flexibility to nope out of the situation when you’re ready, without shame. But it’s your choice if and when to do so, that’s what’s different. It gives you an agency you didn’t have before. And you know what? You might find a killer job somewhere in the states (or JP) that you really want to go for, and now you can do it. Definitely by next spring you’ll have the chance.

Wait, who was saying that, the therapist or me?

T: Integration, yo.

M: Honestly, I find writing under “integration” to be not quite satisfying.

T: Then don’t do it. There’s no forcing you to, that’s the whole point. You can go to the library and get design books and get into it, or you can decide not to.

M: Reminds me of those Creative Monster Fridays we used to have. How they were going to be so creative. I thought it was just going to be, output output output, but it turned out to be just me wondering around the city a lot, and that was wonderful.

Not saying I wouldn’t love to fold all of this into a zine one day, I think it’d make great material

AAA Battery Life

Intro

NOTE: If you have found this Tumblr looking for information about actual AAA Batteries, this may not be the right place.

At this point in flux-y life, I consider myself under the AAA umbrella: Agender, Aromantic, and Asexual. For some people outside the asexual spectrum, AAAs might seem pointless. If we don’t experience romantic attraction or sexual attraction, what’s the point? Within the Aro/Ace spectrums, there is much more nuance. We know it is possible to have every kind of relationship under the sun, from a romantic, non-sexual relationship with lots of cuddles, to an Aromantic, Aplatonic relationship based exclusively on sex, and both of these would be completely valid!

I find myself living solo.

The Suit

was comfortable: a mix of polyester and cotton that they found at UniFit. They hated wearing it in public; it was hot and ridiculous, but such was the culture. Inside, however, they felt safe, like there was a layer of protection helping them, which they needed—they were in the thick of it.

Osaka during the day was not an easy place to take a break. There was no place to sleep, save for a manga kissa, so sometimes they would rent one out for an hour, just to take a nap before heading back to work. They would get a snack, read gundam, maybe drink a vending machine coffee. Instant food culture here was both infectiously enjoyable and somehow hollow: empty calories. If they wanted to do something else, they would explore the city, take walks, snap photos. Stay away from the hullabaloo.

At home, life was small and comfortable, which they were used to. It was a sort of extension of the lockdown: they had their games, internet, enough to keep them busy. Sento around the corner. Language exchanges, as usual, were difficult due to the timing, but they still did their best to find partners.

For them, it was hard not to want to find a romantic partner out of a language exchange, the idea was almost irresistable.

『ハイキングが大好きの？まさか？一緒にハイキング行こう！』

But they also knew the realities of the life they wanted, and that even if a romance did happen, something long term was almost always out of the question. Even if it was something they did enjoy experiencing from time to time, they knew that to be committed to a single “monamorous” relationship would eventually drive them insane, so they never pushed for it. allo/aromantics ren’t a thing anywhere, much less Japan. So the frustration was there, and it did boil over from time to time, but in most cases self-care was more than enough help.

Eventually, they realized that there was a term for the thing they were looking for: QPR (Queer Platonic Relationships). Slowly, they started building a loose web of them. It wasn’t easy, because internet. Because things like this take time. But eventually, they felt stronger and more secure in their “web” than they ever did in a monamorous situation, which was too limiting for both people, whenever they’d experienced it.

So, it allowed them to do things like this. Live in a different place, work, go through the struggle, but feel supported, which was something they had craved for a very long time.

Dreams 2/18/21

A black government agent, he’s a republican but I’m interested in what he’s trying to do from within the administration. Visit some kind of complex in Washington where they’re giving tours and whatnot.

writer

Rel woke up at noon. Sometimes, it felt good to sleep in after a long night, and last night was definitely a long one.

They got ready to set out around 3 a.m. They had everything they needed: stickers, markers, cans. Black hoodie, black pants, black mask. Skateboards were loud. The thing Rel trusted the most was their own two feet, but they still used a bike to get around to some of the more difficult places.

First on the list was a brick wall they had been eyeing on the outskirts of the summer corridor. Brick! In the corridor! How crazy was that? So they got their bike to a relatively near place and walked the rest of the way.

Writing in Summer was hard because people were relatively nocturnal here. There was always an apartment light on, always the buzz of a scooter shifting down the street. This particular brick wall was in a hard place, right under a street light, but in Rel’s mind it was worth it to tag a brick wall—it was their holy grail.

Profile of Bryan

It was time, after the madness, the extended uncertainty, the unknown state of the world, to return home. Brian had been away for almost 12 years. A lot can happen in that amount of time, and of course a lot had happened to him. Sometimes, he wondered how much was his own doing, and how much of it was fate, the actions of the gods moving through the shadows. There was no way to know, at this point.

In the rented car, he plugged in a music streaming app and played some of the music he was listening to from that period, a generally indie mix. Hipsters had gone mainstream at this point, enough to be considered pejorative by other hipsters.

There weren’t the words for it then, at least no one in the states was using them. “Bourgeoise kids” had not yet entered the lexicon. And of course, he would fall squarely in this range.

As with anything, there were ranges, spectrums of hipsterdom. There were the ones who could shop at stores like Urban, go to all the big shows, do designer drugs and things like that. Bryan considered himself more of a working-class hipster (although his parents had pretty good jobs by this point). The thing he never vibed with was the condescending attitudes, the elitism. ”You’re into Modest Mouse? They’re so mainstream now…”

But he couldn’t help but wonder if this wasn’t some sort of phantom stereotype he faced growing up. Memphis wasn’t cool enough to have that kind of hipster, at least not a lot of them. That didn’t stop him from joining the indie bike collective and doing nighttime rides with his friends. The only thing he couldn’t do with them was bike polo; the balance was too difficult.

Instead, he nurtured a slight obsession with becoming a liberal grownup. He listened to NPR every day and got a job at Whole Foods. He read Michael Pollan books and had dinner parties at the house he and his wife bought in Midtown, a gentrifying neighborhood in the middle of the city. He grew a big beard and wore retro clothes he bought at thrift stores. Rode his bike to work and gave up having a car for a year. Shunned the suburbian outskirts of town like the plague, visited his republican parents with reluctance, voted for Obama with pride (He’d thought about McCain for 5 brief minutes, but Palin was unthinkable).

For all of his striving to be “left,” he still held on to things like his work ethic. He’d gotten a job as quickly as he could out of college, and then once transferring to Whole Foods, was always thinking about how he could move up the corporate ladder, especially when he went jogging around the neighborhood. He still believed that hard work could get one far in life, even though he recognized his luck as the businesses around him were shutting down in the wake of the ’08 financial crisis.

The movie nights were the best part of the week. He, Allie (his wife), his friend Jeff, and his friend Mark would meet up twice a week and watch something, a TV show or a movie. The crowning accomplishment was working all the way through 8 seasons of Lost, just in time to watch the finale as it was airing on TV. They threw a party and wore costumes.

It had seemed innocuous at the time, but it turned out to be one of the most stable and enjoyable friendship dynamics he’d ever experienced. The arrangement worked out well; they rotated hosting duties, and whomever was the host prepared food. It was a good way for them to save money on food and hang out. In addition to the regular 4, occasional partners and friends would come and go.

When Bryan and Allie separated, he left the group and that was that (for him). He packed his bags and moved out to the west coast, and left all of it behind like it was a strange dream, never looking back.

But here he was, aided by the indie soundtrack. On the surface, not much had changed, but businesses had definitely closed. For all the chaos he’d heard on the news, politics, election scuffles, COVID outbreaks, things appeared normal. It was quiet. Not many people on the streets (which was always true of summer in Memphis).

The day it stopped

Originally written Jan. 5, 2021

At first, the “allergy” treated as a joke, an anomaly that started somewhere in West Texas. “Karma!” was the constant refrain of most veggies and vegans. Laughter at those who took to social media to complain about the suffering they were going through, and the horrible taste of tofu and fake meat. “You poor things… animal slaughter never mattered this much to you, and now you expect us to care when you can’t take a little tofu?” Most people thought it would be a fluke, a temporary thing, and of course, life would go back to normal. The slaughterhouses stayed in business.

But then, the “allergy” stayed longer. Weeks turned into months. And what started out as a fluke soon spread to other parts of the country. The exact cause could not be traced, and so it became difficult to stop. At first, the old stay at home measures were put into place, much to the frustration of the generation that had survived the trauma of that first pandemic long ago. This was not their first rodeo.

And yet the measures did nothing; those who effectively quarantined for weeks still seemed to catch the “allergy”

Vegans and vegetarians were upset that they even had to quarantine in the first place, for a lifestyle choice that was not theirs. They were encouraged to “think about the wellbeing of the social infrastructure.” There were many, many protest parties which then made it into the news, incensing the omnivorous right. The omnivorous left generally sided with the vegans, and eventually started joining in with them.

For the vegans, this was indeed Karma at its finest.

Eventually, it was determined that the quarantine had no effect on the spread, and the right accused the left of a conspirational plot to poison the well-being of “meat-friendly american values.” Meat growers began complaining of wasted stock, animals would be slaughtered, businesses eventually shut down. They at first funded researchers to attempt to locate the cause, hopeful that a cure could be found. Due to the peculiarity of the “allergy” which was neither genetic nor bacterial or viral, they could do nothing but watch. Within a year, it had become clear: Americans could no longer eat meat.

pro wrestling as art and spectacle

Originally written Dec 23, 2020

Full confession: I stayed up until 3:30 watching wrestling-related stuff on Youtube, namely, the Sting v. HHH match from a few years ago. Drawn to it like a magnet, and I don’t really understand why, so this article will mainly try to get to the bottom of things.

I’ve been playing around with the idea of pro-wrestling as art, and why shouldn’t it be? If we take the root of the word art to be artifice, there’s no better way to describe pro wrestling (This isn’t to say it’s “fake”. That debate, once contentious, has been settled mostly by calling wrestling entertainment). By artifice, I mean that it is a representation of something, similar to a play, a dance, or yes, even a work of art. On the surface, this sounds pretentious, to call something that involves grown people (mostly men) smacking each other with chairs and hammers, but this does a disservice to what other currents may be working beneath the surface, and what it represents about ourselves, specifically me (who is apparently losing sleep over it).

To give a full analysis of the spectacle is something beyond my (sleep deprived) ability at this time. But what I do notice is how I watch matches is not too different from how I appreciate another piece of art. Wrestling of course has deep ties to drama and to less extent film, but what’s interesting to me is that the performance of a match also has a lot in common with the fine arts, specifically sculpture.

If you ask a wrestling fan, they will probably be able to list a handful of their favorite matches, or the best matches ever. Maybe it’s Rock v. Austin, Hogan v. Andre, Shawn Michaels v. The Undertaker, and they will tell you the things that make those matches great. Maybe it was the moves, the athleticism, or maybe even the storytelling behind the match. They could also tell you the flaws. But the main thing is that they are engaged with the work as singular, flawed pieces of performance

I think the work that wrestling has the most similarities with is theater. And it’s true, the matches that most would agree are the “greatest in history” have one thing in common, and it’s not the athleticism, it’s the storytelling (although athleticism definitely helps). But fans don’t recall these matches by the storylines usually, they recall it by the match. So if a storyline is similar to the theater of wrestling, the match is the individual piece of art. And in that way, it has the ability to be appreciated in a different sense than individual parts of theater.

Of course everyone remembers “alas poor yorick” as a singular element. Throughout history, artists have been capturing singular moments within theater and even epic poetry. It’s a font of inspiration. Will we see a bronze of Bret Hart putting Shawn Michaels in a Sharpshooter? Maybe. Will it become as popular as David? Nope.

In the end maybe wrestling wiggles its way out of the sleeperhold of analysis, free to stand still as its own thing, and maybe that’s ok. Maybe we don’t need to have a thorough and vigorous criticism of it. For once, a work of art can be free to do as it pleases (and maybe bash everyone else with a steel chair.)